Population projections for Slovenia 2015

What is projected to happen to the population of Slovenia in the next 65 years?

The population of Slovenia is projected to increase until around 2025 (to about 2,083,000), and then slowly decrease. On 1 January 2080 Slovenia's population is expected to be 1,938,000 or 6% less than in the projections' base year 2015.

In 2080, 2,400 more residents are expected to immigrate to Slovenia than emigrate from it. That is nearly five times the net migration recorded in 2015.

In the future the total fertility rate is projected to mostly gradually increase and reach 1.85 in 2080. Life expectancy at birth is expected to increase as well, and boys born in Slovenia in 2080 could expect to live 87 years, and girls more than 91 years.


Despite assumed greater fertility, the population of Slovenia expected to age

In the next 65 years, the age structure of Slovenia's population is expected to change significantly. In 2015, the elderly (aged 65 or more) stood for 17.9% of the population, while in 2057 this share is projected to be at nearly 31%, and in 2080 at 29%.

The share of children (under 15 years of age) is expected to increase for a few more years (2021: 15.3%) and then start to drop and reach its minimum (about 13.4%) in about 20 years. It is then projected to rise again and reach 15.7% in 2080.


Methodological background

Population projections are an attempt to predict the future demographic development in a certain area. Because they are based on a number of assumptions which are usually very uncertain, population projections are just one of the possible scenarios for the future.

Population Projections 2015 are based on assumptions of fertility, mortality and international migrations. The most uncertain assumptions are those for migrations, since migrations largely depend on economic and political circumstances that are very difficult to predict. It is impossible to include short-term changes in the demographic components in population projections, and all the possible demographic consequences of the turbulent events of the last few years (economic crisis, strong migration flows towards the EU) cannot be fully included in these projections.

These population projections are based on the assumption of convergence, meaning that socio-economic differences among countries included in the projections will decrease over the long term. Therefore all countries are expected to become more similar demographically over the very long term.

Population Projections 2015 are the result of close discussions between Eurostat and national statistical offices of all included countries. During the preparation of these projections, SURS consulted its population projections working group (consisting of experts and other stakeholders) regarding the assumptions.

The starting number of population for these projections is the value on 1 January 2015, which is why they are called Population Projections 2015.


Data